A Secret Life

by Laura Peyton Roberts

  “No.”

  “If I were running that op, I'd bring most of the heavy stuff in and out by the river at night. A couple of guys with scuba gear and the right equipment . . .”

  “Right. It would be easier.”

  “And safer. The land entrance is probably mostly for moving cash.”

  “What do you think K-Directorate is doing with the money?”

  Noah shook his head. “Whatever it is, be certain it's bad. Not to mention that those weapons are going to terrorists. Who else is going to buy them?”

  Sydney remembered the unusual currencies she'd seen.

  “The stuff still in that bunker . . . ,” she said worriedly. “You could arm a small country.”

  “Yeah.” Noah took a deep breath. “So either we confiscate it, or we blow it up. And I can't see how confiscating it's an option.”

  “You can't be thinking of going back there.” Sydney was completely exhausted, and they had both lost all their gear. The thought of returning to Monique Larousse made her want to cry. “There are four of them.”

  “Yeah. Neutralizing all four is going to be tricky,” he said thoughtfully. His brows drew together as he considered his options.

  Fumbling under her shirt, Sydney retrieved her cell phone from her money belt and held it out hopefully.

  “Can't we just call the police?”

  “What? No! Are you crazy?”

  “I'm tired!” she snapped. “And I'm out of ideas.” She put the phone away, defeated. “What do you want to do?”

  To her surprise, his features softened. “I'm whipped too, but we're not done yet. K-Directorate has got to be monitoring the police frequencies, and unless Larousse is a fool, she has one or two of those agents on standby right now, just waiting for the word to start moving ops elsewhere. All that stuff could be gone in a couple of hours.”

  “Even with people still out here looking for us?”

  “The fact is, we don't know where anyone is at this point. Which means that we definitely have to get moving. I'd just like to have a plan before we—”

  A sudden noise froze Noah in midsentence. Footsteps echoed down the narrow street, striding quickly in their direction. Peering out of the alcove, Sydney spotted the menacing form of a man dressed in black. In a few more seconds, he would be on them.

  “Noah, someone's coming!” she whispered frantically. “I think he's—”

  Noah slammed her spine into the back of the alcove, covered her body with his, and kissed her passionately.

  For a moment her mind went blank. Noah was all over her! His hands braced on either side of her head, he leaned into her hard, pinning her to the wall as his mouth pressed insistently against hers. She stiffened, stunned. Then she realized what it meant.

  They were both about to die.

  She flung her arms around his neck and willingly kissed him back. They couldn't run; they couldn't hide. If these were their last few moments on earth, at least they wouldn't die alone.

  Her fingers traveled up into his hair, closing around two damp handfuls. Her mouth opened to his as he took the kiss deeper. The footsteps slowed just feet away, but Sydney barely heard them. All the tension and passion that had crackled between her and Noah since the moment she'd first seen him had suddenly found its way to their lips. She had never been kissed by anyone the way Noah was kissing her now, and she'd certainly never responded in kind. She tightened her grip on his hair, pulling his mouth down harder on hers. He shifted a hand behind her neck, cupping the base of her head to tilt her lips up farther.

  The footsteps stopped. Sydney knew if she opened her eyes, she would see her killer face to face. He probably had a gun aimed at their heads that very second. . . .

  She didn't open her eyes. Her hands ran the length of Noah's back and slipped under his shirt, exploring his warm chest. She could feel his heart hammer beneath his skin, pounding in rhythm with hers. They were both breathing like marathon runners.

  This is it, she thought.

  Suddenly the footsteps resumed and walked away until even the echoes were gone.

  Noah released her abruptly, staggering backward. For a moment they both stared, stunned by what had just happened. It had taken a near-death experience to make them tell the truth, but there could be no denying the feelings they'd just revealed. Sydney's empty hands twitched at her sides, itching to pull him back into her arms. Her lips, swollen with his kisses, parted slightly, anticipating his return. . . .

  Then Noah started apologizing.

  “Wow. Sorry about that,” he said, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “I just . . . it had to look real. Was that guy K-Directorate?”

  “What?” Her jaw snapped shut.

  “You're the one who saw him. I thought you said he was an agent.”

  “I thought he might be, but—”

  “So there was no other way to hide. I never would have otherwise. . . .” Noah shook his head as if to rid himself of the memory. “I mean, you know that, right? All in the line of duty.”

  “Right. Me too.”

  Humiliation burned across her cheeks. To think that he hadn't meant any of it, and she had kissed him like that. . . .

  “Sometimes you have to get physical,” he said. “It's the best way to hide in plain sight.”

  Was he saying he'd done this before? With someone else?

  “Of course,” she croaked. “Obviously.”

  “You understand, then,” he said, relieved.

  “What did you think I was doing?” she rallied.

  Her answer seemed to set him back. They stared at each other again.

  “Good,” Noah said at last.

  “Good,” she repeated, determined not to look pathetic.

  “I think we'd better move.”

  “I agree.”

  Creeping cautiously out of the alcove, they began running down the street in the opposite direction from the black-clad man. Maybe he had been K-Directorate. Maybe not. But despite what Noah had just said, Sydney remembered the protective way he'd covered her body with his, as if to shield her from a bullet. She remembered the urgency of his kisses, and the answering hunger of hers. . . .

  Increasing her pace, she tried to forget. She and Noah had been through a lot together that night. If people got a little caught up in the moment, it didn't necessarily mean anything.

  It didn't necessarily mean nothing.

  If we live, I'll think about it later, she decided, following Noah into a tiny park.

  A cluster of trees near the center provided a decent hiding place, their low-hanging branches a tangle of confused shadows on the grass. Sydney and Noah slipped in among them, their black clothes blending to invisibility.

  “There's no time to take a cab back to the cemetery and get new gear,” Noah announced as soon as they were hidden. His tone was completely back on the mission. “We have to get guns, but where?”

  “Around here?” Sydney gestured to the nothingness surrounding them. “Let's hear your backup plan.”

  “We have to have weapons,” he insisted. “How much money do you have?”

  “Lots.”

  “Things can always be had, for a price. The right bar . . . a bad part of town . . .” His face tensed with concentration. “The problem is, we're losing time. They could be moving that stuff right now.”

  Sydney tried to think, putting everything else aside. Their lives were at risk, and so was their mission. If they didn't come up with something soon . . .

  Suddenly her face lit up.

  “I know where we can get guns!” she cried. “And I have another idea too.”

  Retrieving her phone for the second time, she snapped it open, ready to dial. Noah grabbed her hand, stopping her.

  “Hold it,” he said sharply. “Anything we decide, we're deciding together.”

  14

  “READY?” NOAH WHISPERED. “WE'LL only get one chance.”

  Flat on their bellies on the rooftop of Monique Larousse, Sydney and Noah looked down thre
e stories at the alley behind the fashion house—and at the two K-Directorate agents patrolling it. It hadn't been hard climbing the building at the end of the row and creeping over the rooftops to get to that point. What was going to be hard was getting down.

  Sydney took a deep breath. “Ready.”

  “Let me take Anatolii,” Noah said, pointing to the larger agent. “Are you sure you can handle the other guy?”

  I'd better be sure, she thought. It was my idea.

  Still, taking on an armed K-Directorate agent with only her rookie Krav Maga fighting skills had seemed like a better idea in the park. If he looked up and saw her before she got close enough . . .

  Noah sensed her uncertainty. “I'd take them both, but—”

  “No, I can do it,” she said quickly. “It has to be both of us.”

  “How's your line?”

  Sydney checked the knotted clothesline wrapped around her waist. They had commandeered lengths of the cord from several backyards, along with a blanket for padding, leaving money under doormats for the unsuspecting French homeowners.

  “It seems all right,” she answered. “You're sure this will slow us down?”

  “If nothing I tied it to breaks.”

  “Noah—”

  “It'll work.”

  They peered over the edge of the building again. The enemy agents were walking a military-style pattern, pacing the alley in opposite directions before returning to cross paths behind the fashion house. The beams of their flashlights swept side to side, ready to pick up anything that moved, while their free hands hovered at the edges of their open jackets, poised to draw their weapons. Noah picked up a handful of gravel as the sentries neared their meeting point.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Here we go.”

  With a sharp, sidearm motion, he hurled the rocks across the alley into the bushy area behind the Dumpster. In the late-night quiet, the gravel ripped through the leaves like a shotgun blast. Both K-Directorate agents whipped their flashlights toward the sound, drawing their guns in unison.

  “Now!”

  Leaping from the rooftop, their improvised safety ropes unfurling as they fell, Sydney and Noah landed on the enemy agents' backs, knocking them to the ground. The fight Sydney had anticipated was over before it began as her stunned man collapsed to the pavement, his gun and flashlight clattering out of reach. He gasped for air as she relieved him of his handcuffs, using them to secure his hands behind his back. Then she yanked the release knot at her waist, freeing herself of the safety line.

  “Clear!” she called, turning to Noah.

  Noah was also clear of his line. He had Alek Anatolii facedown on the pavement and was attempting to handcuff him, but the big man was putting up a fight, struggling wildly beneath the knee Noah had planted in his back. As Sydney watched, Alek flipped Noah off and dove sideways across the pavement, his hands grasping for something just out of reach.

  Gun!

  The alarm went off in Sydney's brain. Instinct sent her hurtling toward Anatolii. In two steps, she closed the distance between them. On the third, her right foot swung up beneath Alek's chin, connecting with a force that snapped his head backward. He crumpled to the pavement, inert.

  Sydney held her breath as Noah rushed over to check Anatolii's pulse. “Did I . . . Is he . . . dead?” she whispered.

  “No, but you cleaned his clock pretty good,” Noah told her admiringly, slapping a pair of cuffs on the muscular agent. “Come on. Help me take out this trash.”

  The two of them dragged Anatolii and his partner into the dark space behind the Dumpster, using a third pair of handcuffs to secure both agents to the heavy trash receptacle. Sydney held the flashlight she'd recovered from her man while Noah patted the agents down for weapons. The one Sydney had jumped on groaned semiconsciously; Anatolii never woke up.

  “Plenty of illegal hardware on these two,” Noah said, grinning at Sydney as he pulled a cigarette lighter out of Anatolii's pocket. “And this ought to make things a whole lot easier for us. Go get the big guns.”

  Hurrying back to the scene of the fight, Sydney found the weapon Alek had been reaching for and recovered his flashlight too. The other agent's gun was lying nearby. She picked it up just as Noah reappeared at her side.

  “Nice of these guys to take care of our gun problem for us,” he said, helping himself to a weapon and a flashlight.

  Sydney nodded, but secretly she still hoped there wouldn't be shooting—and there wouldn't, if the second part of their plan worked.

  “Come on,” said Noah. “Let's do this thing.”

  They ran down the back stairs to the basement door, which was still hanging open from their previous forced entry. Guns in one hand, flashlights in the other, they charged into the downstairs hallway just as the first siren wailed in the distance. They grinned at each other and kept going, racing up the stairs, through the main-floor hallways, and into the dressing room. The secret passageway panel was open. They pushed through sideways and thundered down the hidden stairs on their way to the arsenal.

  At the fork in the passageway, Sydney hesitated.

  “I'm going to check this out,” she told Noah. “We ought to know where the other branch goes.”

  “Okay, but do it fast,” he said, running down the left-hand tunnel.

  Sydney watched him go, then veered off to the right. The passage narrowed quickly, and seconds later she was shining her light into the dirt wall of a dead end. The tunnel had never been completed, or perhaps it had been a wrong direction in the first place. Turning abruptly, she sprinted back to the fork and hurried to find Noah.

  Inside the bunker, a fire blazed on the metal floor. Sydney skidded to a halt at the eerie sight. Firelight flickered up the steel walls, illuminating the weapons stores and casting shadows on the low ceiling. The trapdoor she and Noah had escaped through now stood twisted and open, ripped halfway off its hinges. Noah was standing beside it, throwing K-Directorate's cash on the fire.

  “The other tunnel's a dead end,” she reported breathlessly.

  Noah grinned and tossed her an underwater flashlight. “Good.” He picked up a box of shells. “Are you ready?”

  Sydney nodded. “Are you?”

  Noah dropped the shells into the flames. The fire blazed up around them as he switched on a second flashlight and dove headfirst through the trapdoor, disappearing beneath the dark water. Without hesitation, Sydney dropped her K-Directorate gun and dove in right behind him.

  The water in the vertical shaft was just as cold and inky as before, but Sydney barely noticed. Kicking strong and confidently, her flashlight trained in front of her, she reached the horizontal connecting tunnel in seconds, just in time to see Noah's feet disappear inside it.

  In the horizontal passage, the visibility was still horrendous, the tunnel walls still far too close. The pain of her need to breathe felt like a knife through her lungs. But Sydney didn't panic. Instead, she kicked with all her strength, determined to make it through a second time. The beam of her flashlight flickered out, sending her heart up into her throat, but it snapped back on a moment later, just as the tunnel ended.

  Sydney emerged into the Seine and angled sharply for the surface, knowing she was going to live. She could see Noah above her, kicking steadily. They broke into the cold night air as the first explosion rocked the sleeping city.

  A boom like a cannon blast sent shock waves through the river. Treading water beside Noah, Sydney ducked her head, expecting the ensuing din of smaller explosions to fling shrapnel their way.

  “Most of the fallout should stay underground,” said Noah, reading her mind. “Otherwise we couldn't have risked doing this in the city.”

  Another huge explosion split the night, its reverberations echoing off buildings on both sides of the Seine. Sirens wailed at full volume, accompanied by shouts and honking horns as emergency vehicles raced to the scene.

  “What was that?” cried Sydney. “A bomb?”

  Noah grinned. “Isn't that wh
at you told the fire department?”

  “And I told you they'd get here fast.”

  “I'm sure it helped when you said you were going to explode it.” He shook his head slightly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You're actually starting to amaze me, Bristow. Come on. Let's get out of here and find a better view.”

  They swam to the nearby bank, letting the current move them downstream, but staying on the same side of the river as the fashion house. The ongoing explosions and sirens were waking the whole city, filling the streets with shouting, frightened people.

  It's working, Sydney thought anxiously as she and Noah pulled themselves out of the water and began running through the dark streets. So far everything's working. . . .

  Part one of the plan she'd made with Noah was to destroy the arsenal; part two was to neutralize the four agents. To accomplish part two, they needed help—and that was when Sydney had hatched the idea of calling the fire department instead of the police. Using her untraceable cell phone, she had shouted the two French sentences supplied by Noah: “There's a bomb at Monique Larousse. Long live the People's Revolution of God!”

  The idea had been to sound like a terrorist, and judging from the panic she'd heard on the line, she'd succeeded. The dispatcher had probably still been scrambling when Noah called back to make his own report in perfect French.

  He had just passed a store called Monique Larousse, he claimed, where he had seen a woman climb out a window and run away carrying a can of gasoline. Could he describe her? Mais oui! A tall woman dressed all in black, mid-thirties, jet-black hair, milk white skin, and bloodred lipstick.

  If they see Agent Larousse tonight, they'll have to pick her up, Sydney thought now, running around a corner. No one could mistake that description!

  A loud, rapid series of blasts indicated that the fire had spread into something new. More spectators came running from nearby clubs and hotels. Rotating lights on police and fire vehicles strobed colorfully in the street in front of the fashion house and in the alley behind it. Officers strung crime tape between their cars to form temporary barricades, shouting orders in French and working hard to keep the curious back. Sydney and Noah continued running, turning into the first street beyond the alley.